Church location and Reception Venue: Do they have to be close to each other? How far is too far??

So long as you let your guests know in advance it should not be a problem

If your guests are from the area, they will understand - cities mean thirty minutes from one place to another. If most of your guests are OOT and won't have cars, transportation could be an issue.

In my opinion, that doesn't seem to far. I would try keeping it under an hour though.

As long as they can get somewhere to sleep near the reception hall it's no biggie, if they then have to call a cab to find a hotel another 30 min away after the reception and cab back for their car int he morning then it sucks.

I think 30-ish minutes in a sprawling city like Atlanta is pretty understandable, but getting close to the limit. I would just want to know what "35 plus minutes" actually means - is there bad traffic, are people likely to get lost, is it actually 45 or 50 minutes?...

It's not too bad, but the closer it is, the better. The part where people need to drive 35 minutes from their homes to ceremony venue is not a problem. But I would shorten the other route as much as possible. Traffic being as unpredictable as it is, you could have a bunch of guests stuck and very late for the reception.

Even though 35m doesn't seem like much, there's a lot of variables to account for, including late start to ceremony, congestion when leaving church, traffic, getting lost, finding parking. Also guests may not leave right away, and may stand around chitchatting before they leave.

Realistically you're looking at an hour to an 1.5hrs of inbetween time. You also have to factor in time for portraits for family and bride/groom.

You can do it, but you'll need a large buffer.

@Takeivia C.: I am in Atlanta as well! And most of our guests are OOT from Los Angeles. I don't think it is too far. Our guest will have to travel about 40 mins to get to my venue. I have looked at so many different types of venue through out the city. If you need some help with anything, hit me up.

In the Philly area, sometimes it can be difficult to find a venue that is close to a Catholic Church. We are pretty much accustomed to a long drive to either the church or the reception venues. We are also accustomed to a large gap of time between the Mass and the reception. We just stop at a bar close to the venue. It is our norm.

I think as long as your guests are aware of the times, they don't have an issue with it, especially if it is the norm.

I think the distance seems fine, especially if you let people know in advance about the travel time. Our ceremony and reception are about 35-45 minutes apart, for similar reason: we wanted to have the ceremony at FH's parish, but we fell in love with a rustic, historic reception venue further away. Luckily, our reception venue is also the hotel where we've set up a room block, so that makes it a little easier for the guests.

We decided to offer a shuttle between the church and reception, but just for our OOT guests. We're hoping this will help to decrease the chance of people getting lost, etc.

To be honest, I lived in Atlanta for a couple of years and I loved it. But it is entirely TOO EASY to get lost even when you live there - let alone if you have no idea how to navigate that place. And attempting to read a map while driving on the highway is NOT fun (which I also know, first hand). If your budget allows it, I would suggest you try to find a way to shuttle your OOT guests to the venue so that they don't end up in College Park instead of Buckhead...at the least, designate a FEW individuals to lead some sort of "vehicle convoy" to guide those who don't know where they are going to the venue.